The present invention relates to an improved pre-engineered building construction system and more particularly to a building construction system which utilizes improved prefabricated panelized or sectionalized system units which are designed and constructed off-site to include all of the basic utility services, materials and functional elements of contemporary and traditional buildings when erected and assembled to preselected plans and in accordance with a predetermined assembly process. The necessity for innovative reasonably priced and socially responsive housing for all people is recognized in almost every community today. However, owing to the prolonged escalation of building costs resulting from inflation, even the average and other citizens are being denied the possible opportunity of realizing the American dream of home ownership. With the foregoing circumstance in mind, the present invention is directed toward alleviating the problem by providing a unique construction system for building housing which includes all the basic services and structural features of contemporary housing at an economical cost.
It is known heretofore, in the building construction industry, how to fabricate certain components of a building structure, such as walls, floors, roof trusses and the like, at a centrally located factory and then to transport these components to a building site where they are assembled and erected on a prepared foundatin to complete a building structure. It is also known in the prior construction art, that a central module including the complete kitchen, bathroom, closets and other closets with the utilities necessary for such rooms can be built off-site for incorporating into the building.
Various patents have been issued on the construction of buildings with prefabricated panel elements such as walls, floors, and the like in factories located remote from the building site for erection at such sites. Such patents are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,071,984, 4,040,227 and 3,492,767. While U.S. Pat. No. 3,862,534 is directed toward a central room, forming the heart of the finished building, including a kitchen, bathroom, or closets, and all utilities necessary for the building; U.S. Pat. No. 3,919,812 is directed toward structural means and methods for erecting and interconnecting various building sections to one another to complete the building. However, none of these construction approaches, individually or in combination with one another, have provided the needed innovative and socially responsible system which meets the services, materials or functional features of contemporary and traditionally desired buildings as dwellings at an economical cost affordable by the masses.
The prior art systems have failed to meet the needs and demands for economical, functional and architecturally sound buildings because they have overlooked a basic concept long known in the architectural-engineering art. It is well known that a structural need not be complicated and costly to build, to be functionally and aestheically sound. Stated differently, "the form follows the function". Thus, a simplified form is adequate, provided it meets the required architectural-engineering specification or requirements of design.
Thus, the prior art prefabricated construction systems have strayed somewhat from the basics, and have attempted to utilize elaborate materials such as aluminum, epoxies, light weight concrete re-inforced with styrene, etc. Working with these materials and utilizing techniques necessary to fabricate elements of a building and assemble the same, requires skilled technicians, and, costly and complicated equipment and tools to effectuate the job. Stated in another way, the construction industry has failed to appreciate and fully utilize the basic building blocks of its industry to their best advantage.
The present invention has capitalized on this apparent oversight and has incorporated sound architectural-engineering principals and practices into the old building blocks to thereby create a novel design wherein "the form follows the function." That is, the final format of the mechanical interconnections and interlocking devices for assembling building structures have been engineered and designed such that when they are placed or joined in fixed position to produce joints, connections and the like that will meet the building code requirements of a community and are architecturally and engineeringly safe and sound.
Since they are created in a simplified format and can utilize readily available materials well known and extensively used in the construction industry, the cost for the prefabrication of panels and mechanism for interconnections is low. In addition less skilled labor can be used to assemble the building structures owning to the simplicity and ease with which the job can be accomplished, in accordance with the present invention.